absolute terror, 'Behold! I come as a
thief! Blessed is he that walketh and keepeth his garments, lest he walk
naked, and they see his shame.' Were your soul to be stripped naked to
all its shame to-morrow; were all your past to be laid out absolutely
naked and bare, with all the utter nakedness of your inward life this
day; were all your secret thoughts, and all your stealthy schemes, and
all your mad imaginations, and all your detestable motives, and all your
hatreds like hell, and all your follies like Bedlam to be laid naked--I
suppose the horror of it would make you cry to the rocks and the
mountains to cover you this Sabbath night, or the weeds of the nearest
sea to wrap you down into its depths. It would be hell before the time
to you if your soul were suddenly to be stripped absolutely bare of its
ragged body, and naked of all the thin integuments of time, and were for
a single day to stand naked to its everlasting shame. And it is just
because Jesus Christ sees all that as sure as the judgment-day coming to
you, that He stands here to-night and calls to you: I counsel thee! I
counsel thee! Before it be too late, I again counsel thee!

5. But the Prince Emmanuel is persuaded better things of all His livery-
men, though He thus speaks to them to put them on their guard. Yes,
sternly and severely and threateningly as He sometimes speaks, yet, in
spite of Himself, His real grace always breaks through at the last. And,
accordingly, his fifth command runs thus: But, it runs, if you should
sully them, if you should defile them, the which I am greatly unwilling
that you should, then speed you to that which is written in My law, that
yet you may stand, and not fall before Me and before My throne. Always
know this, that I have provided for thee an open fountain to wash thy
garments in. Look, therefore, that you wash often in that fountain, and
go not for an hour in defiled garments. Let not, therefore, My garments,
your garments, the garments that I gave thee be ever spotted by the
flesh. Keep thy garments always white, and let thy head lack no
ointment.--Signed in heaven, EMMANUEL.

CHAPTER XXVII--MANSOUL'S MAGNA CHARTA

'A better covenant.'--_Paul_.

Magna Charta is a name very dear to the hearts of the English people.
For, ever since that memorable day on which that noble instrument was
extorted from King John at the point of the sword, England has been the
pioneer to all the other nations